The Arrows of the Heart

by Jeffe Kennedy

  I’d noticed that more Tala than usual already teemed around the cliff city. “Has the Gathering call gone out already then?”

  “Yes.” He considered. “Before you ask, you wouldn’t have heard anything. It’s Tala magic.”

  Wonderful. “All right. Let’s just do this. I know the king and queen want me out of here before I witness anything important.”

  He blinked at me, a slow smile spreading over his lean face. “Figured that out, did you?”

  ~ 10 ~

  “I could be a spy.” I shrugged. “And there’s a reason the attacks are focused here.”

  “You don’t have magic, so you couldn’t have signaled anyone,” Zyr assured me. “And you don’t have any way to send messages.”

  “Is that what they think?”

  He winced. “I’m terrible at this. Forget I said anything.”

  “Fine.” My turn to sigh. “Let’s get going. Which mapstick do you want to start with?” I held out the handful and he picked one out.

  “Hold that for me,” he instructed while I put the others away in a pouch over my free shoulder, as my quiver and bow hung over the other. “I’m pretty sure that’s for the Annfwn coastline. Once I shift I’ll hold it in my front claws. We’ll do a nice easy flight—I’ll stay high, so no plummeting.” He grinned at me and I found myself smiling back, a bit shy now at how acerbic I’d been. “If that’s correct, I’ll follow the coast to the end of a part represented by the mapstick, then I’ll hand that one back to you with my beak, you give me another, and we can see if we can figure out the next one down.”

  “How will I know which next one to hand you?”

  “You have eyes. See if you can compare the features of the coast to the bumps and hollows of the stick.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Hey—an animal can do it.”

  “A shapeshifter. You said you’re still you inside.”

  “Mostly me.” His smile sharpened to that predatory edge and he winked at me.

  “Maybe you should land, shift back to human, and you pick out the next one to try.”

  He was already shaking his head. “I can’t be guaranteed a high place to launch from. Besides, I’ve already shifted a lot today. With the energy demand of flying—including your weight—I’d do better not to keep shifting back and forth.”

  “I’m not over heavy.” The constant mentions were getting to be a little much.

  “No, but you’re tall.” He tugged on my braid, seeming as if he settled for that kind of touching when he really wanted more. He was being careful to observe my requests that he not touch me more than that, though, so I had to credit him with that much circumspection. “Which I love about you—that you’re tall—but I have to consider my endurance. Plus I need to keep some energy in reserve as there’s the possibility of sleeper attacks.”

  “Oh.” I felt myself pale. “What should I do if so?”

  “You’re good with the bow. Do what you did today. I’ll evade and try to get you open angles. Good shooting there, taking the heads off those undead birds,” he added, the nonchalance of the compliment making it all that much more meant.

  Still, I didn’t like it all being up to me. “You can’t fight as the gríobhth?”

  He cocked his head. “Beak, claws, even my tail—sure I can. Having you on my back, though, I’d rather evade and strike at a distance. Unless you have a better strategy?”

  I flushed, though he hadn’t meant it sarcastically, I thought. I didn’t know what had come over me, that I’d been handing out advice on strategy and battles when I’d only ever been a dinner-table bystander to such discussions. I could shoot an apple off a tree or the head off an undead bird—very similar challenges—but I didn’t know how to fight. So, I shook my head, averting my gaze and hoping to restore myself as properly humble.

  “Tonight, wherever we end up camping, and after I’ve rested,” he continued thoughtfully, “we might practice some maneuvers. I’d rather you didn’t accidentally put an arrow through my wing. Or on purpose because you’re vexed with me.”

  “Oh, I never would!” I’d gasped it out, horrified he’d think it, before I realized he was teasing me.

  “I don’t know.” He frowned dubiously. “You have quite the temper when vexed.”

  “Weren’t you anxious to get going?” I asked with pointed dignity.

  “Yes.” He grinned, and I realized also that I’d forgotten to be afraid for a little while. “Once I shift, put the packs over my haunches, and you sit in front of them. Got it?”

  I nodded, watching closely as the man became the gríobhth. His body didn’t distort or stretch; he seemed to simply trade places with the other. The transition went too fast for my eye—or maybe my mind—to follow. As if the change happened outside a place my brain understood to be real. And though I’d seen the gríobhth before, the sight of him as the mythical beast astonished me all over again. Perhaps even more so for my being braced for it.

  How could the man who laughed so easily and teased me relentlessly become this…truly magnificent creature? He cocked his head at me, spreading enormous wings, feathers clicking as he did. The black plume on his head ruffled in the breeze, and his eye, deep black and sparkling, fixed on me in a mischievously pleased way that was all Zyr.

  I must never let him know how compelling I found him.

  “Move your wings out of the way and crouch down so I can lift these packs on,” I told him, finding it far easier to order the gríobhth about than the man.

  He complied, and I hefted the two packs, joined by a strap, over the furred black haunches. Wide and muscular, with the fur sleek and gleaming, his back end looked like a lion’s—complete with a long tail. But, unlike a cat’s, his gríobhth tail was as thick as my upper arm at its base narrowing as it reached the tufted ebony tip. He whipped the tail in the air, snapping it with a crack, as if demonstrating for me. Oh, that would hurt connecting with flesh all right. I’d assiduously avoided whippings myself, but they were commonly employed as a punishment in Dasnaria, so I’d witnessed plenty.

  “Yes, I see,” I told him. “A most formidable weapon. How are the packs—does that feel good?”

  He pranced and wriggled, the muscles under the sleek fur rippling, then ducked his head under a wing to snag the strap with his beak and tug it forward.

  “I’ll do it.” I nudged his head away and he rubbed the upper curve of his beak against my hand. Reflexively, I petted him where the small blue-black feathers fringed over the enamel-hard ochre of his beak. And he purred.

  I almost didn’t place the rumbling sound at first, glancing at the sky for clouds to go with the low thunder. But it was him, a sleepy pleased expression in his eagle eyes.

  “Just a big pussy cat,” I murmured. “I knew it. Now quit messing around.” I adjusted the packs. “How’s that?”

  He bobbed his beak in a nod, so I ducked under his belly as he straightened to allow me to buckle the straps. Of course, I’d done the same with horses and saddles, never thinking about what I moved in proximity to. Not at all the same when you knew the animal was truly a man. I sent a fervent prayer of thanks that that part of his body bore more resemblance to a discreetly hidden cat’s than a flamboyant horse’s.

  Still, my face must be bright red judging by the hot, tight feel of it, so I kept it carefully averted as I tightened the straps. Then I crouched by his front paw. Again, like a big, black lion’s, but the curved talon-like claws didn’t retract like the cats I’d known. They looked almost reptilian, like they belonged on a giant lizard, gleaming polished marble smooth, the lethal edge evident. I held out the first mapstick. “Can you hold it?”

  With surprising dexterity, he took the stick from me, the claws flexible as fingers. So very strange. I repositioned it slightly, so the mapstick lay horizontal in the obsidian cage of the claws. “Better?”

  He bobbed his beak, holding the paw upraised and steady on the other three legs. “All right,” I told him. “Climbing
on.”

  He crouched slightly, thoughtfully making the mounting much easier this time. I situated myself—and arranged my skirts so cloth lay between the bare skin of my upper thighs and the sleekly hot fur of his back. I didn’t know how much sensation he had there, but no sense encouraging him with intimate contact.

  Canting his head back, he gave me a look both inquiring and challenging—and somehow entirely him.

  “Yes, yes. I’m ready.” I clenched my teeth and steeled my stomach. And closed my eyes. “Go.” A scream ripped out of me, despite my resolve, the force of it wrenching my eyes open. Better that way, even though the rushing air tore moisture from them. Having my eyes closed made the drop feel worse. Zyr’s great wings worked furiously around me, a cloud of glittering blue and black, the massive muscles bunching under my clenched thighs. The feeling of falling lessened. We leveled out.

  And we began to climb.

  Without the stomach-hollowing sensation of falling all the way to the beach, I did better. Maybe I could handle flying. I just hated the taking off and landing parts. I steadied myself, taking a moment to look around this time. Sitting on Zyr’s solid gríobhth body, shielded from the wind of our passage by his arched neck and with the billowing curtains of his wings on either side, I felt remarkably safe. I released my death grip on his black mane, realizing how the silky strands had cut into my fingers deep enough to turn my fingertips bloodless. Feeling the change somehow, Zyr craned his neck around to glance back at me and I smiled, giving him a thumbs up to show I was all right.

  If a beak could grin, he did. Circling over the water, he came around to align with the beach. Circled back again. Then, his body gathered under me, wings pumping to take us higher, and realigning. Flying forward slowly along the line of the beach, he held the mapstick in his claws, looking from it to the ground below.

  Feeling quite useless—a burden in a literal sense more than ever—I surveyed the landscape, accustoming myself to seeing it from this very new perspective. For the first time I glimpsed the land beyond the high cliffs of Annfwn. The dense shrubs and short coastal trees on the flat top of the cliff rose quickly into forested hills. Those mounded on each other until they grew into high peaks, white with snow, their tops lost in a fog of blizzarding storms. How odd that winter blew so near the bubble of tropical warmth surrounding us. Though I knew the cliff city shouldn’t have changed, I leaned back for a clear view of it, unobscured by Zyr’s dense wings. Who knew? Perhaps it shapeshifted, too.

  But no—the cliff city remained verdant and calm as ever. Flowering vines and fruit-laden trees gleamed in contrast to the white walls. The jewel-bright sea lapped against the crystalline sands in warm serenity. Looking back to the winter-tossed peaks, I glimpsed a vast flock of birds rising from the forested foothills. It swirled, gathered, then arrowed in our direction. Rather, in the direction of the heart of Annfwn, where Tala teemed over the beach and crowded the cliff road in greater numbers than I might’ve imagined.

  The Gathering.

  Zyr must have found his bearings because he flew faster with steady strokes of his wings, a ground-eating pattern that soon left the cliff city behind. The peaks remained on my left, the open sea on my right, but the expansive beach below dwindled, in places giving way entirely to spurs and falls of rock. In others, sheer cliffs appeared to drop straight to the water, which flung itself against them in foamy churning, no longer the gentle surf as at the city. In the distance ahead of us, more and higher mountains disappeared into storming clouds.

  Tala lived here, too, because I saw them flying, leaping, climbing and running—sometimes in human form, but most often as animals—and all heading the opposite direction from us, answering the summons of their king and queen.

  Zyr had to have noted them, too, and I wondered if it rankled in him to be moving away from, rather than with his brethren. And weighted down with someone at best worthless, and at worst the enemy.

  After a while, Zyr’s steady pace eased off, and he began to circle. Taking the mapstick from his claws with his beak, he handed it back over his shoulder to me. Unprepared, I began rummaging in the pouch for another. He clacked his beak impatiently, so I gave him the first one at hand. He took it, aligned it to the coast, then gave it back with a toss of his head. Fine then.

  If I’d been thinking, I’d have been sorting through them as we flew, teaching myself to see the coast in the stick’s geometry. They still looked like wood sticks to me. Prettily carved, but with no more significance than that. Zyr clacked his beak at me.

  “Just wait!” I raised my voice so he’d hear, though the gentle circle made it easier to be heard than it would have in the rushing wind of full-out flight, so it sounded like I was yelling. “I wasn’t ready,” I added at a more modulated volume.

  He sighed dramatically, his chest expanding then deflating under my thighs. In retribution, I tugged sharply at his mane, rewarded by a chuckling purr. Straddling him bareback as I was, with his exertion-heated body pressing into my open crotch, the purr vibrated through me in a delicious—and startling—way. I sincerely hoped he couldn’t sense how that affected me. I would have to fashion some sort of blanket to put between us to prevent further impropriety.

  “Here.” I thrust a mapstick at him, uncaring if it might be the right one, so long as it distracted him—and me. “Try this one.”

  Taking it from me, he kept it a bit longer, climbing higher for a better perspective, then giving it back with a rueful shake of his head that had his plume ruffling. The reprieve had given me time to study the rest of the ones we’d pulled out for the possible second leg. Truly, Zyr’s discernment in getting the first one correct impressed me. I’d kept that in another pocket until I could figure a way to code it as the coastline at the cliff city and south. Zyr continued in lazy circles. The sun declined over the water, and he didn’t seem to be working as hard, even gliding now and then as he caught some air current off the land. Playing a little as he waited, a peaceful feeling that allowed me to soothe my mind and even enjoy the scenery as I tried to match it to the wooden sticks.

  We moved over a spectacular cliff with a high waterfall that thundered into the sea—and off to my right I caught sight of a substantial, very nearly round island. Something about it…

  In a burst of inspiration, I sorted through the mapsticks and found the one I recalled. As if my vision had come suddenly into focus in a different way, it made sense to me. A perfectly round indentation on the right side of the flat stick matched the circular island. If I saw the wood as representing the water, that sharp point exactly opposite could be the cleft of the waterfall.

  Excited, I handed it up to Zyr. He took it, purred approval, which sent that shiver of delight through me—I definitely needed to put a pad between us—and set out straight down the coastline again. The approval and sense of pride warmed me also. I’d always done reasonably well with the lessons my tutors set me, those subjects my father thought might be useful to me as a candidate for empress. Certainly I hadn’t learned everything my brothers were taught, but far more than my sisters did.

  I’d been betrothed to Kral in early adolescence, and my father had reasoned that as empress someday, I’d need to know more than the average wife. And if, as it had seemed likely back then, I ended up spending the rest of my days as sacrificial virgin to Hestar’s reign and heirs, living celibate on the Hardie estates, then I might as well know enough of the family accounts to provide continuity. I, of all his children, was the least likely to ever leave.

  A fine game hlyti had played on us all there. I’d not only left, I’d gone so irrevocably that I’d never see any of them again. No matter how this war turned out, I could never return to Dasnaria, unless I wanted to die. Unless I wanted to change sides. I shouldn’t feel so traitorous contemplating it. I was a daughter of Dasnaria, after all, and though these people had all been reasonably kind to me, I owed them nothing.

  Truly, whether I assisted the Tala and the folk of the Thirteen Kingdoms, or re
turned to Dasnaria, I’d be betraying the trust of the other side. I couldn’t win.

  Gloom settled over me along with the cooler air of twilight. It might be my imagination, but it seemed cooler here than back at the cliff city. My bare arms grew chilled, and my body ached with exhaustion—both physical from the long ride and lessons from Tays, and emotional from the grueling day. Perhaps the tiredness accounted for the downward turn in my mood, not actual depression.

  Still, as much as I looked forward to getting off the gríobhth’s wide back and letting my stiffened hips relax into a more usual position, I found myself dreading what the evening would bring. I understood perfectly well now why it wasn’t practical for us to return to the cliff city for the night. We hadn’t finished traveling the entire map of only two sticks and we’d spent the entire afternoon on it. If we went back, it would be well into full night and we’d have to start over again in the morning. I supposed we could go the other direction, but then we’d face the same problem.

  And none of that took into consideration that they very obviously didn’t want me there. Who could blame them? I was fortunate they hadn’t decided on the simple expedient of executing me.

  Camping made sense—and I’d certainly slept under the stars before, both in my youth and on this journey—but I really feared what Zyr might expect of me. We’d agreed to being friends. No sex, he’d said. But that had been before the odd incident on the beach, when he’d succumbed to his animal self. Plus we’d be alone, with no other females available to ease his appetites. Men had strong sexual urges, I understood. I’d overheard enough talk among my brothers and other men to know they craved release often. Because of that, I’d never begrudged Kral his dallying with other women. Not that it had been my place to begrudge him anything. Besides, he’d faced no consequences of conceiving a child that would have to be executed at birth.